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We have just released a new version of Skype for Windows: Skype 5.10 for Windows.

In this updated release we have focused on making it easier to find the contacts you truly care about. We’ve introduced the ability to pin your Favorite contacts to the top of the Contacts tab, as well as merged your Facebook and Skype contacts into a single list.

Possibility to control Skype video rendering technology for backward compatibility for people who have trouble with video calls

Here’s a bit more detail about the improvements.

Select and pin your favorite contacts
There are probably a handful of people who you talk to most frequently using Skype. To make it easier to talk with those people you care about most, we have introduced a new Favorite contacts feature, which lets you easily pin these people to the top of your Contacts list. Now, they are always available to you, without needing to search for them.

View one Contacts list with all your Facebook and Skype contacts
The new version of Skype comes with an improved Contacts list design. We have merged your Skype and Facebook contacts into a single list, so they are all in one place. We have also changed how we display the Contacts list within the user interface.

Easier to Understand Premium subscription notices
We have simplified the Premium subscriptions communications to make them easier to understand.

Backwards-compatible video rendering
We have added a configuration file option to enable users to switch on a backwards-compatible video encoding mode (i.e., GDI, for those of you who may be more technically inclined). This will help solve video encoding issues for those Skype users who still have very old computers or graphic cards with drivers that may not properly support DirectX 9.

We suggest only using this when you have heavy issues with video calling, such as only seeing a still picture or horizontal lines being displayed on screen instead of the video stream, or if our Customer Support team is unable to offer you another working solution.

To use this option, please exit Skype and then open the file named config.xml in a text editor. This file is located at C:Users*WindowsUsername*AppDataRoamingSkype*SkypeName*. Please add the following line of code to that file under section [General]:1

We would like to thank our Closed Beta tester community, which has helped us a lot to get a great release out to you. In addition, we would like to offer a big bow to our volunteer localization community (see their names below), which helps us accurately translate this and many other releases so that Skype is more usable for all.

The full release notes for Skype 5.10.0.114 are:

Improvements and changes:

Select and pin your favorite contacts

Facebook and Skype contacts combined into one Contacts list

Easier to understand Premium subscription notices

Possibility to control Skype video rendering technology for backward compatibility for people who have trouble with video calls

Remove ‘Video in Mood’ functionality

Additional Fixed Issues:

Category

Description

Screen sharing

Skype crashed when exiting Skype during a screen sharing session

Video

Video calls with iOS devices may sometimes have been displayed improperly

Video

Video calls did not always resume on the Call Monitor after a screen sharing session

Calling

Call Monitor was not always closed at the end of a call

Localization

Transferred files with names in Korean characters were not displayed correctly